In the new issue of Regulation, economist Pierre Lemieux argues that the recent oil price decline is at least partly the result of increased supply from the extraction of shale oil. The increased supply allows the economy to produce more goods, which benefits some people, if not all of them. Thus, contrary to some commentary in the press, cheaper oil prices cannot harm the economy as a whole.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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The Encyclopedic Unconstitutionality of the Individual Mandate

My parents got me a set of Encyclopedia Britannica when I finished middle school; I had graduated from the “young people’s” reference collections, they told me, so it was time to move to “adult” research materials. (I should point out to readers who are currently students that ”encyclopedias” were “books” that presented a fairly exhaustive collection of basic knowledge about the world; I got my set a few years before the internet put such information at anyone’s fingertips for free.) And so it was with nostalgic delight that I accepted an invitation from Britannica’s modern online incarnation (to which David Boaz has contributed many short essays) to provide a short response – an op-ed, really – to an argument Penn law professor Kermit Roosevelt made supporting the individual mandate’s constitutionality.

Those who have followed Cato’s work on Obamacare won’t find much new here, but here’s an excerpt:

The Constitution simply does not permit the government to compel citizens into transactions to remedy what would otherwise be an economic hole in a given piece of legislation. Although the Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to adopt reasonable means to regulate interstate commerce, it is not a blank check permitting Congress to ignore constitutional limits by manufacturing necessities. Indeed, any law—“necessary” or otherwise—that would transform Congress’s authority into an open-ended power to legislate for “the general welfare” is unconstitutional.

While government lawyers emphasize the “uniqueness” of the health care market and the wisdom of the legislation at issue, “this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise … in fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and … the Constitutional role of the federal government.” Florida v. U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services (Judge Roger Vinson’s decision striking down the individual mandate and with it all of Obamacare, Jan.31, 2011).